The specification relates to providing a computation service for one or more mobile nodes in a roadway environment.
Vehicles may access and use a cloud service. A cloud service involves a vehicle wirelessly communicating with a server via a cellular network. The vehicle may receive data stored on the server or generated by the server executing operations for the vehicle. The vehicle may also store data on the server.
Cloud services that rely on cellular communications are undesirable because they rely on infrastructure such as cellular towers. Infrastructure-dependent wireless communication must establish communication with cellular towers and other infrastructure, and must reply on the communication protocol of this infrastructure, which is frequently designed to favor the needs of the entity that owns this infrastructure and not the needs of the endpoints (e.g., the vehicles) that rely on this infrastructure. The infrastructure itself tends to be out of date and slow relative to the communication capabilities of the endpoints because providing updates to this infrastructure costs money and does not necessarily add to the profits of the corporations that own and operate this infrastructure. As a result, infrastructure-dependent wireless communication is not suitable for modern vehicles that need to be able to access data in real-time or near real-time.
Experience and experimentation also show that infrastructure-dependent wireless communication is not capable of working in in the presence of network partitions. Experience and experimentation also show that infrastructure-dependent wireless communication struggles to maintain communication when endpoints are moving, as vehicles are prone to do.